Newcastle 3 Liverpool 1

12/12/2010

Alan Pardew got off to a winning start as Newcastle United manager with an impressive 3-1 win over Liverpool at St James’ Park on Saturday evening.

The Toon Army had been vocal in their support for former Newcastle manager Chris Hughton, who was sacked by club owner Mike Ashley on Monday despite the fact that the club were lying 11th in the Premier League.

Pardew was given a hostile reception ahead of the match, however, if he can continue to produce similar results to yesterday's it won’t be long until he is accepted with open arms by the St James’ Park faithful.

Kevin Nolan returned from injury and opened the scoring on 15 minutes when he took advantage of some terrible marking by Paul Konchesky to fire an Andy Carroll knockdown past Pepe Reina from close range.

Liverpool had spurned a number of decent chances to take the lead with Sotirios Kyrgiakos firing a free header wide of Tim Krul’s goal, but Dirk Kuyt managed to carve out an equaliser five minutes into the second half after some hesitation in the Newcastle defence.

Fernando Torres should have put Liverpool ahead minutes later when he was one-on-one with Krul, but the Dutch keeper pulled off an excellent save to keep the scores level. Newcastle rallied and Joey Barton restored their lead with ten minutes left on the clock.

Carroll, who had tormented Liverpool’s centre-backs throughout the game, crowned a commanding performance with a long-range goal following some more comical defending from Roy Hodgson's team.